


First Under the Mountain

by AwayLaughing



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Dagor Dagorath, Dwarves, Family, Fem!Durin I, Friendship, Gen, Genderswap, Last Alliance of Elves and Men, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 13:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15887196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwayLaughing/pseuds/AwayLaughing
Summary: Durin I lives. Over and over, in a great many roles. While the world changes each time, one thing stays the same.She is always, in her heart, Durin.And she is always alone.





	First Under the Mountain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asparklethatisblue](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=asparklethatisblue).



With eyes that shone like peridot held up to the sun, Valdi looked out over the world, and the world looked back. Next to him, Oddr and Eddis’ matching copper hair was styled in braids that were direct inversions of one anothers.

 

“It comes,” Thyri said, as slim and slight as ever. “Soon we rest.”

 

“Aye,” Durin, First Under the Mountain said, standing. “In Arda Unmarred.”

 

* * *

 

 

Durin stood among the earth-blood and stared. Light bounced off the materials and left patterns in her eyes when she closed her lids. Around her, the others all stared in wonder and she questioned for the first time why they had stayed within the mountains so long.

 

“Beautiful,” she said, a word that was new to her. She turned to look at father, who was smiling down at them.

 

“Incredibly,” he said. His face was wet. “But you are beautiful no matter where you are, my children.”

 

“Thank you, father,” she said. These words were not new – she had had them from the start. “Why is your face wet, father?” she asked.

 

“I have a terrible duty, my child,” he said.

 

“Terrible?” she repeated.

 

“A word you needn’t trouble yourself with,” he said. “Look up – do you see the cat in the stars?”

 

“Cat?” she repeated, already looking for whatever this was. Some shadow passed at the edge of her vision, but she did not worry.

 

They were always safe with father.

 

* * *

 

 

“Dura!” Dura jerked awake as papa’s voice rang through their halls. “The sun rises and the forges sing – why is my dearest still abed?”

 

“I like bed papa,” she said, rolling out from under her blankets all the same. Papa looked as he ever did, blond beard braided tight, helmet under his arm. He was beaming and she couldn’t help but beam back. “And that’s where you should be, o night guardian.”

 

Papa laughed, retreating from her door so she could exit. She slipped her overcoat on, followed by the slippers who stayed next to the banked fireplace. She poked it twice before following papa out. He was at the table, eating the stew she’d put on before bed.

 

“Burnt?” she asked, because of course it was.

 

“Perfect,” he said, because he did. “I brought home fresh bread, still hot from the ovens.”

 

“Not day old?” Dura asked, because that was their usual fair.

 

“It was a gift,” he said, smile somehow bright than usual. Dura felt a little flutter in her stomach.

 

“From a woman?” she asked, and hoped she didn’t sound too hopeful. Mama was not replaceable, but papa had been alone for nearly a century now. He should at least be open to a new love – they weren’t elves with their silly rules and clinginess.

 

“Your cousin,” he said.

 

“Cousin?” she repeated, confused. She had very little family left aside from father and... “the king?” she hedged. Her mother’s sister’s son, she had very little to do with royalty in this life.

 

“Yes, of course! He offered me a toy for you, too. It’s in my coat pocket.”

 

“Toy,” she parroted. He nodded.

 

“I think he forgot you’re not a child anymore,” he said. “Last time he saw you, you were but a babe in arms, but he asked me to remember him to you.”

 

Her father’s arms as they ran from a dragon went unsaid, because papa never spoke of it. Avoiding it, she thought. Refusing to dwell, he said.

 

“I’m not likely to forget the king,” she said wryly. “It was kind of him, anyhow,” she said. “He makes them now, for the neighbouring humans, doesn’t he?”

 

“Yes, he was just back from travelling. He was quite busy – and ran right into me! As an apology he bought me bread. Without prompting he remembered me, and asked after you,” he said. As he spoke she located his coat – thrown over one of the sitting chairs and not hung up of course – and poked through his pockets. Birdseed in two of them, of course; the one with her mother’s locket, sewn shut; and the smallest one with a hard object in it.

 

It was a wooden ram. Intrigued she brought it closer to the main hearth. It was not at all what she would expect from the king – completely featureless. Just a shape really. Polished and beautiful, but it hardly looked like a toy.

 

“The king made this?” she asked.

 

“So I assume,” her father said.

 

“It’s pretty,” she said finally. It was – but something about it was off to her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, and after a moment she put it on the hearth mantle. “A place of honour,” she declared.

 

“Indeed! Right in the centre,” he agreed. “Come, eat your stew before you need to get to the schoolhouse.”

 

“The children will hardly complain if I am late,” she said but took her seat all the same. Her father laughed.

 

“True! Eat slowly, then.”

 

* * *

 

 

The rain bouncing off the tent was loud enough to distract from sleep, if sleep had threatened to come. As it was Durís was wide awake when her brother eased into the tent. She was trying to work on a letter – or more to the point she was trying to think of how to ask one of the elves to take the letter to Valinor when this was all over. Some them would go, surely. One must be willing to take a letter from a dwarf.

 

“Tomorrow _you_ be Durin,” he said, collapsing onto his bed. A pang hit her, and she buried it.

 

 _I am always Durin, and Durin is me,_ she wanted to say. She couldn’t though. Everyone would think she was mad – such imagination was for little girls not grown princesses, especially not the sort seated in a war tent. As if imagination were folly - once they had imagined constantly.

 

Once. Once. Once. Ah but what good was it?

 

“That is the deal,” she reminded him instead. “Have you anything to say to Celebrimbor?”

 

Silence, sudden and deep.

 

“You believe those elf stories?” he asked. “That the dead walk twice?”

 

“Why not?” she asked. She walked, didn’t she? “The flowery one died and he’s walking just fine.”

 

“The what?” he asked. She turned to look at him. There were shadows on his face even the mountain hadn’t been able to make. So cruel, that the young of their people wore such heavy crowns these days. Oh, how gilt and tender life had been back then, for all it had seemed so awesome and terrible.

 

“Lord Glorfindel,” she said. “Balrog-slayer, Lord of the Golden Flower of Gondolin, currently one of Gil-Galad King’s generals, often found training troupes and grooming ponies?”

 

He blinked. “I thought the one here was a son or something, what with the story being he got eaten.”

 

Durís rolled her eyes. “The stories do not say he was eaten – he was grievously injured fighting a balrog without armour and was pulled over a cliff by the whip. And the elves don’t name their children from the dead,” she said.

 

“Well not if the dead start walking around again you wouldn’t,” he said, finally flopping down fully. For a moment she couldn’t breath. He was very picture of Thyri when he did that – their hair was the same shade. Then he spoke, jerking her from heartsick memory. “Is he truly?”

 

It was cruel to see Thyri in her brother, to herself and him and Thyri. Because Thyri was not there – he had neither her stature nor her temperment and to assign a dead woman stripped her breathing brother of himself. And still she yearned for the other woman, as much as she rued her name.

 

Why was she alone? Why had they left her to return again and again. Alone?

 

“He says so, and he seems the solid sort. And other people recognize him,” she said, burying most ancient hurts. “Unless someone goes off to elf-land and does research for a report it’s as close to confirmation as we’re going to get.”

 

Her brother laughed. “Ah your reports,” he said. “If you could explain summarize the stars, would you?” he asked.

 

“Of course,” she said. “Things are not less beautiful just because you wrote it down. My reports have made us very popular,” she reminded him. “King Gil-Galad is trying to find something to bribe King Oropher into doing something similar.”

 

Durin snorted. “We should just discuss very loudly near the Greenwood camp their suspect literacy. Should do a tidy trick.”

 

It was Durís’s turn to laugh. “You’re welcome to try it. I’ve always wanted to know if a sufficiently motivated dwarf could outrun an elf.”

 

* * *

Legends say she and her brothers and sisters had cowered from father’s hammer as he prepared to follow his own father’s demands, but she recalled no such thing. She recalled the beauty of the stars and watching the new-found ore glitter in the meagre light. It made sense that she couldn’t recall, she supposed. She hadn’t truly been alive then, or so the legend said but in truth she had felt alive. New, a new so tender and fragile it defied belief yes, but alive.

 

Of course legend also said she was a man, so perhaps there was not much sense in listening to it.

 

“My king?” Durin looked up from the sea of stars at their feet. A nervous looking youth had apparently gathered the courage to approach her. He was dressed in armour perfectly formed for him.

 

Nothing should be perfectly formed for a youth in the midst of growing, she thought with just a moment of bitterness.

 

“Yes?” she asked. She didn’t know his name – she only knew a handful. The First names, the oldest. Those who had touched her heart with their unknowing hands since then. A few from outside her kin entirely – but not this poor boy’s.

 

“I was...I don’t mean to be impudent,” he said, “I was wondering...are you scared?”

 

A murmur went through the crowd.

 

“Yes,” she admitted after a moment.

 

“Will we lose?” he asked.

 

She shook her head before he’d even fully finished his question. “No,” she said. “Hope, in any darkness.”

 

No one spoke Khazdul anymore, not like this. But this was not the normal plains of Arda marred – there was no barrier of tongues here.

 

“Hope, in any darkness,” he repeated. “Even this last.”

 

“Even this last,” she agreed.

 

* * *

 

 

Father stayed the night, which was unusual. He shared in their stories and helped them tidy up for the rest. He was much more exacting in that.

 

“Father, we will just be taking it all out again once we wake,” Oddr said.

 

Father smiled, dim with only earth-mother’s breath for light. “It is good practice, Oddr,” he said. “And keeps from accidents.”

 

“Who will cause and accident, we’ll be asleep?” Valdi asked.

 

Father just shook his head. “Accidents often just happen,” he said.

 

“Can’t you watch over everything?” Durin asked, even as sleep tugged at her eyelids.

 

“I will be busy watching over you.”

 

They were the last words she heard for a very, very long time.

 

* * *

 

 

They hadn’t had incense, the first time around, and now Dur was thinking she wished they’d never discovered the damn stuff. She could picture Helaug’s expression over such things perfectly in her minds eyes – silver eyes narrowed and palest-gold hair in its usual tight bun. It bolstered her now, giving her the courage to enter her father’s room. It stunk to high heaven, and her eyes watered with the scented smoke. Priests, with their covered faces and red-dyed fingers added their body heat to the already sweltering room.

 

Who, she wondered, thought a stinking room full of people was good for recovery? Her mother, probably. No – uncle. Definitely uncle.

 

“OUT!” she hollered, finally gathering her wits. The priests came to a very sudden stop, turning to look at her. She couldn’t see their faces – another affectation she did not approve of entirely – but she could picture them all the same. “Get out all of you. And take the damned incense with you.”

 

“It is healing, your highness,” the head priest said. “As are the chants.”

 

Elves did not put up with this sort of thing, she knew. Elves might write a worrying amount of songs about stars but when a person was ill they got open air and quiet. Maybe some plants. Most importantly, they got healers – not uppity priests who thought they knew everything about everything.

 

“Just because the smoke smells of wood and flowers and spices and not coal does not make it any better for you,” she snapped. “Out, before I get the guards.”

 

There was a little moment where she thought they might call her bluff – she’d never stooped to calling guards to do her dirty business before – but finally the head priest bowed. The two lowest ranking priests collected their supplies and she watched them until they were gone from the hall entirely. She wanted to close to door for privacy, but they needed the air flow.

 

“Dur?” her father asked as she came in. “Goodness. I think your mother-brother wishes me ill.”

 

“Uncle is silly, is all,” Dur said, taking a seat next to him. Her father did not look well. He was pale to the point of being grey – and his hair, long white as the peaks of the _garaabadi_ was thinning to the point he was nearly bald at the crown. An unusual affliction among dwarf kind. “He was born in a different time than either of us.”

 

“Ah Dur,” her father said. “Sometimes you remind me of my great-grandmother.”

 

 _I am your great grandmother_. Not a thought she could vocalize. They had let her imagination run wild as a child, but now she was older and apparently imagination was a thing to be forgotten. “Well you named me for her,” she said instead. “You’ve only yourself to blame.”

 

Truly, she had been quite the old battle axe in her second life. Princess Durja had lived a life mourning her losses as Durin and only learned too late how much she had lost in this life. And oh how time eroded memory – people spoke fondly of her now!

 

Her father laughed, or tried, for all it collapsed into a harsh cough. She helped him sit up so he didn’t choke, and waited patiently. When it subsided she wordlessly cleaned the bloody mucus from his face and beard. “Truly you have a unique spirit,” he rasped. She eased him back. “Ah Dur. I am tired.”

 

“I know, father,” she said. Despite her vow to never revisit Durja, she felt a trill of unease. She did not want to be a unique spirit. “Rest, I will safeguard you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Durvör sat at her mother’s feet and tried not to show too much excitement as the newcomer stepped into their halls. Around her everyone was tense – worried about this interloper. She found she couldn’t summon the same feeling. How could she? It had been a lifetime – two actually – since she’d last seen elves. Back in the east, the doors to the mighty cities of the garaabadi were long closed. Even to their oldest, most faithful friends. Here in the west she’d been kept sheltered to the point she hadn’t even met any edhil, let alone whichever party this elf hailed from.

 

It certainly wasn’t a familiar one. He was very tall – though that wasn’t so unusual – and his hair was the colour of thin-spun gold. His face was clear and open and his eyes – oh his eyes! They shone with something.

 

They reminded her of Father’s eyes. Not as bright, and the light was different but it was closest she seen since she settled down for that first Sleep.

 

“Are they all so huge?” her sister asked. They were seated on their seats, at mother’s feet, and their chairs were pushed so close to touching. Still her sister had to speak slightly above a whisper. Durvör wasn’t certain anyone noticed, but then what did it matter?

 

She was thousands of years old and this was her first ever blood-sister – she was going to have whispered conversations and no one could do anything about it.

 

She was also resolutely not going to think about how she’d had wonderful whispered conversations with her first sisters. They had company – it wouldn’t do.

 

“They are all taller than any of our people, yes,” Durvör said. “I know not how much taller, on average.”

 

“How odd,” Nanna said. “Imagine how tall their halls must be!” She said nothing else, however for the elf finally reached the end of their mother’s greeting hall.

 

“Greetings to Dora,” he said, voice ringing out clear and clean. It thrummed with something – not the deepness of some of their own men but rather something which reached into her bones. Durvör suppressed a shudder, wondering what it was. Risking glances around her no one seemed perturbed, to have noticed this thing. “Queen Under the Mountain. I am Findaráto, son of Arafinwë of the Noldor and house of Finwë, previously of Valinor. I give thanks, for bringing me into your vaunted halls.”

 

Mother stood once he was done speaking, taller than him thanks to the dais. She had a weight to her the edhil did not. “Welcome, Findaráto of the Noldor, Arafinwësson,” she said. “I welcome you into my halls as honoured guest. May you bring much life and light with you.”

 

And that was it. This so called Findaráto took a deep boy at the waist and gamely followed the seneschal out of the reception hall.

 

“That’s it?” Nanna asked. “She didn’t even ask why he’s here. What in the Mountain-Father’s name is Valinor?”

 

“We’ll know after petitions,” Durvör said, wrestling with her own urge to chase after the stranger even as she tried to sooth her sister. “I suspect he will take midday meal with us, in one of the private parlours.”

 

“After petitions,” Nanna said in one of her usual tones, meaning whatever she was saying was a high tragedy. “They will take all morning!”

 

“Patience is a gift from the stone,” Durvör reminded her sister. A very subtle shift from the nearby guard pulled her attention back to the front – the first petitioner was approaching. Suppressing her own sigh of high tragedy Durvör sat a little straighter and tried to put the edhil out of her mind.

 

* * *

 

 

“Durin, Durin,” Thyri appeared at her elbow, eyes luminous in the nearly total dark. “I think I did it!”

 

“Did it?” Durin asked. Thyri always had at least three projects going on – it was a fun though foolish game to try and guess which she’d made a breakthrough on this time.

 

“Light!” she said. “Babies from earth-mother, we can bring them with us.”

 

Durin blinked. “Show me,” she said finally. The places made bright by earth-mother’s heart were too hot to work in. You needed many stones between you and her to be comfortable. Thyri needed no more instruction, grabbing Durin by the hand and pulling her through a few of their workshops. Thyri’s was at the far end, nearest the forbidden place because she alone did not feel the urge to go there. Earth-mother provided all she needed. In that, she was Father’s best daughter.

 

There it was brighter than anything she’d seen since earth-mother. At first it was hard to look, actually but in time she managed. What she saw was beautiful.

 

“It is not fluid like earth-mother’s heart,” Thyri explained. “It is air!”

 

Entranced, Durin put a hand out, stopping just short of the nameless-dancing thing. “It’s warm,” she said, realizing what Thyri meant now. “Thyri you are amazing.”

 

“Thank you,” Thyri said. “A song gave me the idea.”

 

“Song,” Durin said, wondering. They had very few right now, having to make all of their own. Father taught them some, but he hadn’t taught anything like this, she didn’t think.

 

“Yes, he was very nice,” Thyri said.

 

“Mmm,” Durin said, before what Thyri had said hit her. “He?” she said, looking up. Thyri was fiddling with one of her liquids now, measuring it carefully into another one.

 

“Yes,” Thyri said, “he was lovely. Tall too! I don’t think he’d fit in the halls.”

 

Durin nodded, trying to understand. “Was this a stranger?” she asked, not sure where they would find a stranger.

 

“Mhm,” Thyri said. “He was looking for father, and he found us. I had to explain I had not seen father, he asked how long and I said I did not know. Then he sang me song to say thank you for the help.”

 

“Oh,” Durin said. “Was he...mad?” Father had always stressed they needed to be unseen – that he loved them but there were things which might not.

 

“Hm? Oh no. He laughed when I explained father too him, though he did not say what was funny,” Thyri said. “Why would he be mad?”

 

Durin opened her mouth but stopped after a moment. She didn’t know.

 

* * *

 

 

After everything, she missed the end of the war. At the time of the Betrayer’s defeat, she was buried under the bodies and refuse of battle, spared only from drowning by the fact the dead was piled three men-high below her. Durís was not sure how long she lay there, bleeding sluggishly and trying to escape, but eventually someone pulled her out, and when they did she found herself with a sobbing warrior clinging to her middle. It was enough to keep her standing, so puzzled though she was she tried not to make him feel self conscious about it.

 

“Warrior?” she asked, or tried to. All that came was a croak, but caused someone to pass her a waterskin and so she had no complaint. After resisting the urge to drain the whole thing – it would not due to vomit all upon the poor man – she tried to pass it back.

 

“Keep it, your majesty,” one of the men said. “We are simply pleased to find you.”

 

 _Majesty?_ For a moment she did not understand, and then she realized. Durin, bless him, had no true battle sense and so though it had technically been his day to be King, she had agreed to act in his stead as general. It was the troops, not for glory, and so she hadn’t thought twice about it. Now her blood ran cold.

 

“How many?” she asked, pushing down her panic.

 

“Alive? Maybe one thousand, who will survive save for death by own hand,” a man she now recognized as the captain of home-guard, Eirfur. His brilliantly copper beard was still darkened with gore, and one arm was in a sash. “Another thousand I doubt will see home again though the now breathe. We look for survivors still, all the same. Forgive me, majesty but we had lost hope of finding you.”

 

“How long?” she asked, already knowing she would like the answer no more than the last.

 

“Near four days,” he said grimly.

 

“I see,” she said, suddenly feeling very far from herself. When was the last time she had fought a battle? The Union, surely, and the bitter betrayal that gave the so called Nirnaeth Arnœdiad its name. Then they had lost, and there had been no protracted mourning. Just retreat, where anger had fuelled them until they reached safety and grief could truly be felt. This did not seem to be the case now. She could see figures making their way all around her, not just kin but human and elf alike.

 

No other life could compare, she realized. Life as Durin-King had not seen any battles like this – skirmishes with orcs, yes and that last desperate battle with a fallen song, wreathed and flame, but nothing else so great and wasteful. How could she do this? How could she survive the press of years and lifetimes if such violence was to pepper it? Heat tickled her cheeks, and she realized she was crying. No one said anything however, just pulled the warrior off her. Eirfur and another she could not place flanked her, wordlessly herding her to the healer’s tent.

 

 _I cannot_ , Durís, princess of the Longbeards thought.

 

 _I must_ , Durin, First Under the Mountain thought. _I must_.

 

* * *

 

 

Her father was less three days returned to the Stone when the knock came to her door. Everyone had agreed she needed a week to recover, never mind how Dura herself disagreed. Time alone meant time to reflect. On the loss of her father, on the loss of her dearest friends, whose memories haunted her less and less as time went on. She knew some would rejoyce, but it seemed the bitterest behaviour. What colour were Oddr’s eyes – she remembered it was remarkable but not what about it seemed that way. Now she could only conjure green to mind, and green was beautiful but hardly remarkable.

 

And what about Thyri had seemed so brilliant, then? She’d been the shining mind amongst them – and yet she had created no alphabet, sung no songs, nothing that cemented her memory in the minds of their people.

 

But then, neither had her father, who she recalled perfectly for now.

 

Three days into her informal house arrest – everyone was forever rushing her home and bringing by food so she need not venture out – a knock came. She was nearly ready to cry for the sound, so isolated did she feel. The tiny flame of joy died when she saw who was on the other side. Lady Dis, flanked by two guards and dressed in mourning white.

 

“News from Erebor,” she said. Though her eyes were dry and her voice steady, Dura had to fight back a sigh. “The King is dead, long live the King Under the Mountain, Dain I.”

 

“Long live the king,” Dura echoed. “Your sons, my lady. We will mourn their loss.”

 

Still she had to wonder if there was a life she would need not mourn in, some day.

 

* * *

 

 

“Amazing.” Durvör jumped, having been so busy with the stars she had not heard their visitor enter. “I would have thought, so far below ground the sky would be lost to you, but I see it is not so,” he said, looking up through the vent that went all the way to the top of the earth. “Nor did I expect to find a place so green.”

 

“Even the core of the earth has her own types of green,” Durvör said, overcoming shock quickly enough. She could hardly claim naïvité, and was not so easy to shake. “Greetings, Findaráto Arafinwësson.”

 

“And greetings to you, Durvör Dorasdottir,” he said. “I hope I am not intruding.”

 

“Not at all,” she said. “You are welcome to the stars as anyone.”

 

His mouth twitched and he gave her a small bow. “My thanks, my lady,” he said and settled himself on bench. He was too long to fit his legs under the bench as she did, and instead had to extend them all the way out. They went quite a ways. Knowing they were alone, she studied him in a way too impolite to have done in front of her mother at lunch. The light in his eyes was queer, there was no way around that. It shone with something she yearned to see for herself, though the tales assured her this was impossible now. “Do I pass muster?” he asked after some time.

 

“I suppose,” she said. “May I ask something intrusive?”

 

“I suppose,” he said. “If I may ask in turn.”

 

She nodded – it was a fair trade – and thought of a way to phrase her question. “There is pall over you,” she said finally, weighing her words. “It is a fey thing.” Not a question, technically, but he did not point it out.

 

“We left Valinor inauspiciously,” he said. “And so now lays a Doom over all the Noldor.”

 

“Inauspicious,” she repeats, disliking the vagueness.

 

A shadow passed over him, settling with his fey pall to create a shroud. “Blood was shed,” he said finally. “And among our kin, blood should never be shed.”

 

She blinked. She was not sure she had expected that answer. “There is no prohibition among us,” she admitted. “Though it is not a comfortable thing and we frown upon it.”

 

Findaráto did not say anything, just nodded his head, eyes far away. After a long few minutes he turned back to her.

 

“There is a, a _hanu_ in Valinor. We call him _Yúxës Fayatië,_ ” he sent her a small smile, “a name that sounds odd to even our ears, rendered from our most ancient tongue as it is. He lived here, long beyond these mountains and long before your kind woke, and it is here, in perhaps these self same mountains, he died at the hand of ancient foe.”

 

As he spoke, her heart picked up a little. Did he speak of someone like her? “He died and yet he walks among you?”

 

“As is the gift of all the eldar,” he said, “to rest in he halls of Mandos and return to the world once at peace again. Few from those days are among us, he is the only one I have seen in the cities. It was my understanding this was our gift only, and you mortals were gifted differently.” He looked at her full on now, face openly curious. “And yet you give me the sense this is not so.”

 

Durvör – no, Durin-King’s – heart beat in her chest as it hadn’t done in many years. She took a moment to think. “Have you seen this on others?” she asked finally.

 

“None,” he said. “Why?”

 

“I...” she had long realized this was a truth she could not speak. Memory that Durin-King was female had long fled her people, and they expected _him_ back only of the final of all battles. “I am the first,” she said finally. “I was here before all others, and am said to be the last of us as well. I had companions, the first time. I rather hoped...”

 

“First time?” he said, “you have lived more than twice?”

 

“Yes. I think...five times now?” she guessed, trying to recall them all. “Six – one was sadly very short. My mother wept terribly, I understand from our histories she never recovered from the loss.” She shook her head. “Dora is far less sentimental. Are you saying the elves have only one chance to return?”

 

“I am not sure,” he admitted. “I do not recall anything that says so, though I suspect the Valar would feel put upon, replacing our bodies yet again. Do you undergo something similar?”

 

She shook her head. “In truth, I do not recall awakening from my sleeps, any more than any other being recalls their birth. But a birth it is, with all associated ills and joys.”

 

“Ah,” he said. “So whatever binds you here is not within my ken.”

 

“That makes two of us,” she said. And then because it was an evening for secrets she admitted, “I miss them.”

 

“Those you awoke with?”

 

“Yes. Thyri, Eddis, Helaug, Oddr, Valdi, Halur. My closest kin and greatest friends, and I have not seen them since those years so long ago,” she said.

 

“I have nothing that can soothe your loss, sister,” he said, “though if you ever have chance to meet one of _our_ Unbegotten you may find someone who can at least share you grief. All I can offer is a song.”

 

“You are a song,” she said, “but I would be glad to hear one – what do your people sing of?”

 

“The sea, the stars, the – the Trees. Their loss. Our journey – though that one is long.”

 

Trees? She wondered this Valinor had cut all theirs down and now rued it, which went against the usual behaviour she’d observed.

 

“I don’t mind lengthy,” she said. “I would like to know of your people’s leaving – and return.”

 

“Ah, for a tale of return you need my cousin, Káno, but he now stands king and does not sing as he once did,” Findaráto said. “Shall we find ourselves a harp or something of the sort?”

 

“Lets,” she said, “follow me.”

 

“As you say, Durin-King,” he said. Her heart fluttered to hear it from another again.

 

“I am no one’s king these days,” she said. “But thank you.” _King under the mountain_ came unbidden. A shred of his fate, she wondered, or hers?

 

“Will you tell me of them?” he asked, “or are you too heart-sore?”

 

She had not spoken of them in so long, the very idea she could share all her tales sent her heart beating again as it had earlier. “I shall.” She said, “may words heal heart-wounds.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was impossible to know how many dwarves fell around here. She had ended up among humans, somehow, the melee long having devolved. Through it all Oddr and Eddis were with her, Eddis’ great pike flashing with a light internal, Oddr’s hammer ringing like justice. With a snarl she cleaved one of the great orcs harassing a man next to her and turned to face a foe. Instead she found another human, grim faced and black haired.

 

“Durin King,” he said with a small nod. “Your enemy comes among us.”

 

“Túrin Húrinsson,” she said nodding back. “As does yours.”

 

“May we see them from this world, once and for all.”

 

* * *

 

 

It took her until she could no longer lift her head for her eyes to become clear. _Goodness. I think your mother-brother wishes me ill._ Father had spoken in jest, but she found she was the punchline. It did not sit well, not with Durin-King, First Under the Mountain and not with Dur, only child of Odurer and Queen of the Longbeards.

 

“Oh Dur,” her uncle said, settling next to her. “We seek still a physician-”

 

“Open your teeth, uncle,” Dur said, cutting him off though her voice left her in stages. “You need not hide your laughter behind them any longer.”

 

For a moment he said nothing then he sighed. “If it makes you feel better, I do not relish this.”

 

“It does not, truly,” she assured him and he shook his head.

 

“You were always peculiar, sister-daughter. I loved you, until I realized what was wrong. You were not meant to exist.”

 

For a moment she thought he knew. Did she realize that mother many times gone, long gone, had returned in her? Then he continued to speak, and somehow managed to disappoint her even more. It seemed impossible, given he had refused her the right to armed combat by poisoning her, but so it was.

 

“It is because a woman-king is unnatural,” he said. “And so I must set things right, because you will not.”

 

“It is a woman-king who will lead us all, in the end,” she told him. “No matter what you do. Now leave. I would you give me the right to die without your face in my mind’s eye.”

 

Wordlessly, her uncle stood and she watched him go.

 

“How did it come to this?” she asked herself. How had a son of Helaug become such a being? “Ah if only you were hear,” she said into the silence. “You would set him right.”

 

* * *

 

 

Durís was dead and none to mourn her save her brother. But she sat with Durin's crown upon her head - meaning unmourned she went.

 

It was not that her people gave her no thought - but they did not know her. None would look upon the simple buttercup and feel a pang of remembrance for her, none would see a piece of watered silk and laughing knowing she'd once embarrassed herself with a piece. She was just a face and a name now, and it was bitter despite the fact she had been less than that for many thousands of years now.

 

How long, truly, since she'd even been a name?

 

Now she looked over her people – sat upon a throne since the first time she bore the name and found it hard. None were the faces there should have been. The halls were too grand, the sun too far away, her people too shrouded in rigid custom. It was not fair, that they had a liar-King thrust upon them and not fair she had to lie and not fair she was alone.

 

The songs of remembrance still rang about them, three days and three night they had sung and only just finished the Naming. She had cried those three days and three nights, bitterly and without any hope of them stopping. Why had it come to this? She mourned no crown, she mourned people and faces and _love_.

 

And now her last love was dead, his face only here because she wore it.

 

Durís was dead. Long may she reign.

 

* * *

 

 

Durin would have cried for Halur as he fell, had the heat of the monster not nearly dried her eyes. Resisting the urge to shield her face she squared her shoulders, bringing her greatsword back into position.

 

She could not defeat this evil, something told her.

 

But she could keep it from winning. To the last of the defender she said, “go.”

 

“My King,” he said, “I cannot.”

 

“You must,” she said. “This tale must be told, and I cannot tell it.” She dared to look at him, quickly, and had to jump when the beast used the excuse to flail its great whip. “It is not so tragic. My beard is long white, and you’ve much life left. Heed my final order, and remember Durin, First Under the Mountain.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This was a treat to work on. Lore-liberties were taken but only to enhance Durin's narrative. I hope everyone enjoyed this.
> 
> Edit: wee last minute update to tell you the art can be found on the masterpost, http://awayandlaughing.tumblr.com/post/177767887435/first-under-the-mountain


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